ABSTRACT
The fixing of the Financial Framework, inclusive of all budgetary costs of enlargement, calmed down the debates about the enlargement, including the one about the effects on the area of agriculture. All in all, the candidates had to prepare themselves for a "tough line" of the Commission regarding agriculture, and also the Commission obviously expected difficulties in the search for a common position of the European Union (EU) over the main issues. On April 14, 2000, the Commission provided the Council with the Draft Common Positions on Agriculture, although in a first phase without the chapters Veterinary and Phytosanitary Regulations that only came onto the table at the end of May. In the negotiating round of June 14, 2000, the EU confronted each of the ministers of the six candidates of the Luxembourg Group with a tailor-made, comprehensive, but from their point of view hardly satisfactory EU Common Position on Agriculture.
